My Old Flame is a torch song composed by Arthur Johnston with lyrics by Sam Coslow in 1934. The two were house songwriters at Paramount Pictures and wrote it specifically for the Mae West film Belle of the Nineties, where West performed it backed by Duke Ellington and His Orchestra -- an arrangement West insisted on despite studio resistance over costs. The lyrics blend flippant humor with genuine nostalgia for a past love, captured in the memorable opening line "My old flame, I can't even remember his name." Harmonically, the composition features a chain of circle-of-fifths progressions leading to delayed resolutions and what can be interpreted as a Neapolitan chord, along with a series of false endings that lend the song an air of emotional ambiguity and sophistication. After its initial pop success, including a number 7 hit for Guy Lombardo in 1934, the tune migrated into the jazz world in the early 1940s through recordings by the Benny Goodman Orchestra with Peggy Lee and the Count Basie Orchestra. A 1944 small group session by Cootie Williams with Bud Powell and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis pushed it toward bop territory, and Charlie Parker's 1947 instrumental version for Dial Records cemented it as a bebop vehicle. Other notable recordings include Benny Morton's 1945 Blue Note session with Barney Bigard and Ben Webster, and vocal interpretations by Ella Fitzgerald. My Old Flame remains widely performed and a staple of jazz fake books.
